About the conference

Complex Conditions – Diverse Approaches

In recent years, there has been an increased awareness of how early and prolonged psychological trauma can lead to a wide range of severe psychiatric symptoms and disorders, including psychosis. Along with this awareness, increased interest in applying trauma and dissociation perspectives on etiology and treatment to psychotic disorders, including schizophrenia, has followed.

In 2015, to address these issues, the first international trauma-dissociation-psychosis conference was held in Kristiansand, Norway. This theme was addressed by expert speakers with backgrounds in the fields of either dissociation and psychosis, or in some cases both, fields that have traditionally had little contact. The conference was a great success with more than 500 participants and very positive evaluations.

Because of the continuing interest in this important area a ‘follow-up’ conference in Kristiansand in 2017 will be arranged. This conference will explore the complexity of psychotic and dissociative symptoms, how they can best be understood, and what consequences these new understandings may have for clinical work. We have invited international, as well as Norwegian, experts from both the psychosis and the dissociation fields, to discuss many aspects of this theme. With this conference we hope to continue the development of this important field, in order to understand better how to work with these complex conditions.